Laser Scanning from a Vessel

June 3, 2015

Laser Scanning from a Vessel

We recently conducted a trial in Auckland, New Zealand whereby a Terrestrial Laser Scanner was mounted to the roof of our vessel PANDORA II and driven around Westhaven Marina and the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The trial will form the basis of a paper being presented at the Australasian Coasts and Ports 2015 Conference in Auckland in September. The locations for the trial were scanned at a rate of 2000 points per second, the detail of which is not evident in these images. The results exceeded our expectations so we plan to conduct further tests and hopefully undertake some work using this technology in the near future.The Auckland Harbour Bridge data includes MBES data of the seafloor from a previous survey. The next step is to log data above and below the surface simultaneously using MBES and a TLS. The beauty of a TLS over mobile laser scanner is that they are readily available for hire/purchase and can be integrated with our existing MBES survey suite.
This capability has real potential when surveying complex coastlines and structures as it removes the risk to personnel and equipment in areas such as wharves, bridges, oil/gas pipelines, dams, rock walls, rivers and river banks etc.